“My gratitude, young man,” he wrote, “is already familiar to you. Under Heaven you were instrumental in saving my son’s life, and that alone ensures for you my active regard and interest while I myself live. The only question in my mind, since your acquittal, has been to find out how best I may advance your welfare: and at the instance of my son, whose brain is quicker than my own, I agreed to offer you a very onerous and responsible appointment—on one condition. The work requires a clear head and some knowledge of figures. Experience might also have been reasonably demanded but this I waived. You have already shown qualities of mental readiness, nerve and ability which, had they been exercised upon worthy instead of highly improper pursuits, might have excited admiration instead of suspicion. But your unruly past is forgotten and forgiven before the knowledge that you saved Henry Vivian’s life. Therefore, since Mr Bright reports that your attainments, though not splendid, are quite respectable, and that your remarkable facility for learning will soon make you master of the art of bookkeeping by double entry, I have determined to offer you the post of assistant overseer at my sugar estates in the island of Tobago. Consult with your wife whether she will entertain this proposal. The climate is healthy but exceedingly hot. My son will return to the West Indies for a short time in the autumn; you will follow if you agree to do so; and the nature of your duties will then be made clear to you. The necessary practical experience can only be acquired on the spot; but I trust you to learn quickly, and I believe that the measure of your knowledge will swiftly increase to the measure of your gratitude when you receive this offer. But you must not be too much obliged. I am under an obligation to you of the mightiest description, and not the least of an old man’s diminishing ambitions is to see you and your courageous and noble-minded wife happily embarked upon a worthy and a prosperous career.”
“Minnie!” bawled Daniel, “listen to this here! Of course ’tis settled. To think of you seeing the world! ‘Exceedingly hot,’ he says. But I lay ’twon’t half be so hot as ’twas last time I was there!”
“If you’d let me read your letter, dear heart, I should know a thought clearer what you was talking about, and how to advise,” answered Mrs Sweetland.
There came a merry night at the “White Hart,” and the bar hummed with conversation and laughter. Not a few friends were present; not a few were missing.
“Have a drink along o’ me, Matthew?” said Mr Beer. “You’ll ax why I’m in this shop instead of behind my own counter; but the missus is to home, an’ I told her that after saying ‘good-bye’ to Dan and Minnie, I should make a night of it along with a few of the best. Well, they be gone after the sun. You bore yourself very stiff at the station. If he’d been my boy, I should have blubbered—such a soft fool am I. But I’m afraid your missus felt it cruel.”
“She’ll be all right,” said Matthew Sweetland. “Think of the glory of it! Man’s work he’ve gone to do. An’ no rough job neither. Figures! It dries my old woman’s eyes when I put it to her how uplifted he be. Hundreds of pounds will pass through his hands! They trust him, an’ well they may trust him.”
“And do you trust him yet?” croaked Gaffer Hext from his corner.